Yearly Archive: 2010

Having said yesterday I didn’t know where share price was headed, I proceeded to predict there would be a major move either up or down once Research In Motion results were released today. Well, RIM was up $3 at one point and down $1 at another in after-hours trading, but then settled out a mere 2 per cent higher despite posting a 40 per cent improvement in profits and beating the estimate on guidance. Not so long ago, a year or two back, such powerful results would have sent share price higher by as much as 8 per cent. These...

I have no idea, unlike those analysts who purport to know everything, what the numbers will look like when Research In Motion reports third quarter earnings after the market closes tomorrow. All I know is that one side or another is going to be right and the share price is likely to make a major move up or down. The other thing I know is that things have come to a pretty pass when BusinessWeek (no stranger to bad times itself) takes to laughing at the co-CEO’s tie. What’s that got to do with anything? Meanwhile, if you want the...

Julian Assange is a hero; Julian Assange is a criminal. Those are the two schools of thought about the anarchist (we can all agree on that) who through WikiLeaks has released thousands upon thousands of documents from multiple sources. He claims all he wants is justice but what he’s done is illegal. I’m not one of those angst-ridden writers who sees conspiracies at every turn and claims Assange is all about free speech. The video showing the Eighth Cavalry aboard an Apache helicopter killing unarmed civilians and a journalist in Baghdad is one thing, but the most recent avalanche of...

Everyone of a certain age can tell you exactly where they were when they heard that John F. Kennedy had been shot. I can also tell you where I was on October 23, 2000 when I heard that Mike Lazaridis had donated $100 million to launch the Perimeter Institute. Not only was it the largest philanthropic donation ever made in Canada, the money was given in mid-career, a time when most people are still clambering for the top. As if that weren’t unusual enough, his name isn’t emblazoned on the edifice like some of those deathbed donors who desire a...

How’s my old friend Manulife doing 18 months after Donald Guloien replaced Dominic D’Alessandro as CEO? The first thing to say is that Guloien finally seems to be coming into his own. Share price has firmed up at $15, the annual investors day last week when analysts hear from senior officers went well, and the problem of hedging variable annuities seems solved – as long as equity markets don’t go into the toilet again. Manulife badly needs this newfound stability. Share price tumbled from $40 two years years ago to $9, rose briefly to $26, fell again to $12 and now...

Now that Industry Minister Tony Clement has said no to the sale of Potash Corp. and BHP Billiton has withdrawn its offer, nationalists like myself should feel happy, but I don’t. Rather than a hollowing-out where a head office was moved, what we have here is a hollow victory. It feels like your team won because the other side scored in its own net during the dying seconds of the game. Don’t get me wrong, this is the right outcome, but the wrong way to get there. Canada has the most open policy in the developed world when it comes...

The lateral arabesque by Jim Prentice from government to business augurs well for both worlds. The former minister of the environment will be able to guide CIBC in the ways of government and public policy without having to lobby or get anyone’s knickers in a knot over conflicts of interest, perceived or otherwise. Prentice joins a short, but distinguished, list of senior officials and politicians who have recently made a similar leap to the private sector. Others include Frank McKenna, Kevin Lynch and David Dodge. Fewer are the wandbearers who leave business for public service. Bank of Canada Governor Mark...